palmerpink

I have a favorite painter. I even remember the exact moment I discovered him. Well, not exactly --maybe not the date or time or the context beyond barest detail. But I do remember it, mostly, and that it--and his work--still moves me. I was in Boston for one reason or another, and I went to the Fogg museum, for one reason or another. I remember it being an impressive building, but that's about it; it was right before some major renovations, so who knows what it's like now. That being said, philistine that I am (or was, hopefully), I can't remember anything I saw there. Except that one painting--one painting and one pivotal moment I can otherwise only slightly remember. It was Renoir. It was always going to be Renoir, it seems now. It was his self-portrait  at age 35. Something about his face and its intimacy, its immediacy; something about the way it popped, without leaping, from out of those drab colors. It caught my eye, and I was transfixed. I've never stopped ...